273
JAMMR 4 (2+3) pp. 273–298 Intellect Limited 2011
Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research
Volume 4 Numbers 2 and 3
© 2011 Intellect Ltd Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/jammr.4.2-3.273_1
Keywords
Arab youth
Egypt
Egyptian revolution
media scepticism
political efficacy
public opinion
social networking
sites (SNS)
Nermeen Sayed
The University of York, UK
Towards the Egyptian
Revolution: Activists’
perceptions of social media
for mobilization
Abstract
The role that social media could play in engaging people in the democratic process
has recently gained more attention following the series of mass protests and revolutions
that has swept the Arab region starting with Tunisia, then emulated in Egypt,
and now taking place in Libya. It has been argued that those revolutions were
linked, at least in the preliminary stages, to the active use of social networking sites
such as Facebook and Twitter. This article attempts to shed light on these assertions
by reporting some early observations from a study which was conducted immediately
prior to the revolution in Egypt. In particular it explores the young activists’
perceptions of the potential of social media for mobilizing activism in authoritarian
regimes. It thus helps situating social media (SM) in the spectrum of political
engagement by gauging young activists’ motivations for utilizing those outlets for
political participation aimed at social and political change. This article relies on a
survey of a snowball sample of young Egyptian activists, along with focus group
discussions (FGD) also, to seek answers to questions about contextual factors such
as media scepticism, political efficacy and fear of authority, which are expected to
relate to social media motivations and users’ tendencies to engage in forms of online
and offline political participation. The findings indicate that young activists were
Nermeen Sayed
274
mainly driven by guidance and surveillance needs in their political utilization of
social networking sites. A strong positive correlation between online and offline
political participation was also detected.
Introduction
In the last few years, Egypt has witnessed many incidents that may suggest
that Egyptian people, and particularly youth, are becoming keener on political
participation to attain change and democracy. With the rapid spread
of the Internet, scholars and commentators argue that Internet users could
challenge ‘actual concentrations of media power’ (Couldry and Curran
in Arvizu 2009: 388) and practice what Carroll and Hackett (2006) called
‘democratic media activism’ through building communication networks
(Arvizu 2009: 388) and creating their alternative arena for political participation.
The very recent history showed how Egyptian youth used blogs to
interact and keep up the high spirits until they find the right moment to go
‘offline’ and practice their right of expressing their opinions freely (Shamir
1995). A number of social movements and civil activism evoked by Egyptian
citizens were either parallel to, or even stimulated by interaction between,
loose network groups of young people using the Internet as a working environment
so that virtual and reality experiences create a congruent space of
communication (W. S. Fahmi 2009: 90). Youth for Change movement, the
Egyptian Bloggers movement and the April 6 movement’s call for national
strike, are only to name some.
Egypt witnessed 1000 social protests between 1998 and 2004 in which
the protest rate increased by 200 per cent from 2003 (Ottaway and Hamzawy
2011). The eagerness to show discontent and claim political and socioeconomic
reforms was reflected in an unprecedented number of oppositional
demonstrations, rallies and the formation of nonviolent dissident groups
Egypt witnessed in 2004–05 (El-Mahdi 2009: 1011).
On 25 January, a series of daring consecutive anger protests sparked
off in Cairo culminated in a massive revolution provoked mainly by youth,
and led to Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak being ousted from his office
when he yielded to an 18-day mass demonstration calling for democratic
reforms.
Although incidents may suggest a positive link between using social
networking sites and political mobilization, this research aims to contribute
a new dimension to the ongoing debate on the potential of social media
for democratic engagement by shedding light on the relationship between
different perceptions of social networking sites utilities and political
participation, both on and offline, in authoritarian regimes where the
context is different than in well-established democracies and may hence
yield different findings. Conducting the current research in the critical
period between the parliamentary (fraud) elections of 2010 and the uprisings
of January 2011 counteracts enthusiastic responses which might arise
after the revolt, and helps to capture a more reliable picture regarding social
media potential for engaging people in politics. Moreover, this study helps
address the need for understanding the individual citizens’ engagement in
politics in relation to contemporary technology as mentioned in previous
research (Bimber 2001) with respect to specific contextual factors related to
the studied society.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
275
Social networking sites (SNS) and political participation
With the proliferation of the Internet a vigorous debate was generated on the
medium’s capacity for engaging people in politics. Research in this path yielded
mixed findings. On the pessimistic side, scholars were sceptical about the
potential of the Internet for enhancing or enabling democratic participation. The
Internet has been blamed for replicating the same patterns of offline participation
rather than creating new opportunities for involvement. It was argued that
using the Internet can reinforce the digital gap by engaging online those who
are already engaged offline (Bimber 2000; 2001; Gennaro and Dutton 2006).
Concerns were also aroused about detaching citizens from political engagement
due to the time spent online (Shah et al. 2002; Putnam 2000).
Another group of scholars have adopted an optimistic line of thinking,
stating that the Internet has the potential and can act as a catalyst
for political participation. The Internet is a source of political news that
can bridge the gaps in mainstream media coverage of political issues such
as elections (Tolbert and McNeal 2003). Evidence from recent research
shows how the Internet can have the capacity to expand the numbers of
the politically active, especially in the online environment (Gibson, Lusoli
and Ward 2005; Krueger 2002). Reducing the cost (time, price and effort)
of acquiring political information and allowing convenient opportunities
for participation can attract more citizens to get involved in political activities
(Boulianne 2009; Tolbert and McNeal 2003). In authoritarian regimes,
where freedom of expression is suppressed, convenience and low cost
can also include the Internet’s capacity to reduce risk levels that might be
attached to practising politics in such regimes.
Abdel Rahman Yousuf, the former coordinator of the National Association
for Change, stated in an interview that:
The advantage of the Internet is that it opens a window outside the
monitoring zone of the authority, or this is how people think. Authorities
can monitor the Internet, but it cannot monitor everyone online. Online,
there is no physical activity to monitor, users do not leave their fingerprints
online, or so users believe. Joining an online group does not
necessarily make the group members responsible for the demonstrations
on the streets, and it is impossible to imprison 250,000 members
in ‘El-Baradei for Presidency’ group, or 400,000 members in ‘We Are All
Khaled Said’ group on Facebook, but they can still do that with people
on streets. Hence, the Internet offers that level of ‘safety’ for its’ users
which makes the mere activity of joining online groups for citizens who
were governed for thirty years by the emergency law a form of breaching
the fear boundary, and it also implies a level of initialization. If the
Internet users perceive joining online groups as a brave act, this means
that they defeated their fear, even if only relatively.
Scholars have perpetuated the same logic regarding social media utilities.
It has been argued that the Internet could play a crucial role in triggering
people’s willingness to express their opinions through the networking function
(Shen et al. 2009) as reference group could provide sufficient support to
stimulate individuals’ outspokenness even when they feel they are in a clear
minority (Vitak et al. 2009; Neuwrith and Frederick 2004). This social support
granted through an online network was found to be more present in ‘large’
Nermeen Sayed
276
	 1	 In late 2007, a cell
phone video posted
on YouTube by famous
Egyptian blogger
Wael Abbas led to the
prosecution of two
Egyptian policemen
who were convicted of
torture (Pintak 2008: 1).
In 2008, Facebook was
efficiently utilized
to promote public
protests on 6 April
and 4 May demanding
better salaries,
controlling high
inflation rates and
solving bread and steel
crisis. In June 2010, a
Facebook page named
‘We Are All Khaled
Said’ was created
upon Said’s murder
to condemn police
brutality. A number
of demonstrations
that sparked off and
spread in Cairo and
Alexandria have been
linked to calls posted
on that page.
interpersonal networks as members of such groups would feel more ‘confident’
to express their views.
Smitten (2008), on the other hand, argues that although the Internet has
the potential to enable online communities to act politically, there are also limitations
that could make ‘the predominant effect of political action of online
communities […] the arousal of public attention as a sign of successful articulation
of interests’. Some political online communities, according to Smitten
(2008) lack organization around well-defined political objectives, and even if
they assess those objectives, they may face the difficulty of accessing the political
system, especially in dictatorships and non-plural societies. This may impose
difficulties on bridging online activism to the offline context to make social and
political change feasible. Additionally, the inner structure of online communities
does not follow a certain law on organization, which poses questions on
the quality of ‘decision making’ and ‘policy formation’ of these communities and
serves as a justification to take them lightly within the political arena (Smitten
2008: 51). Boyd argues that ‘activists’ are not being realistic in their evaluations
of the potential of social networking sites for empowering ordinary citizens
(Boyd 2008a). But, on the other hand, there are conditions under which online
communities could outreach public opinion and gain political weight; drawing
the attention of traditional media is one of the most important conditions for
online communities to achieve publicity. Additionally, Smitten suggests that
online communities could get help in organizing offline events through cooperation
and coordination with traditional pressure groups and thus make advantage
of their contacts and experiences (Smitten 2008).
In authoritarian regimes, the participatory context is completely different
than of well-established democracies where most evaluations of social media
potential have taken place (Brandtzaeg and Heim 2009). It was found that in
a context of media censorship people’s beliefs about the empowerment capacity
the Internet could play are shaken, which suppresses their willingness to
speak out their opinions online as Internet efficacy in this case has nothing to
do with their readiness to speak out (Shen 2009). It could be said that political
apathy under such regimes may be imposed on citizens who are not allowed
thorough opportunity to participate in politics due to limitations in the political
structure under which they operate (Zaki 1994). Evidence from reality may
suggest that social networking sites could operate differently in such societies,
although limitations may still hinder utilizing those media platforms to
penetrate the ‘real’ political arena.
Young citizens have repeatedly utilized social networking sites to mobilize
dissent against high inflation rates and government corruption. Egyptian
bloggers’ activism has repeatedly embarrassed the government to prosecute
security-violating practices that have long been overlooked (Pintak 2008: 1).
Several public strikes and demonstrations took place in the last five years and
were mobilized via social networking sites such as Facebook and YouTube.1
Nevertheless, there is no evidence of direct coordination between the
‘“Facebookers’” virtual activism and the demonstrators’ physical mobilization’
(W. S. Fahmi 2009: 105). Additionally, the short life span of the uprisings
mobilized by young activists might suggest a low level of commitment among
members (Ottaway and Hamzawy 2011).
Aliaa, a 29-year-old female journalist and activist commented:
When we compare to El-Baradei group on Facebook, or other pages created
for example, to support an arrested blogger named ‘Together we…’ I think
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
277
this is just an emotional reaction. For example, when El-Baradei called
for ‘change’, people aspired for that and rushed to engage, but then they
started to think. Moreover, and very simply, when you receive an invite on
Facebook to a strike people might think to reply ‘attending’ whether they
will actually attend or not on the understanding that nobody will follow
them and ask why they did not attend. We do not monitor each other, we
don’t even know each other, and this is the case for most people online,
most of them do not meet and do not even know each other.
In her research of the role of new media in the emergence of youth publics in
Cairo, Arvizu (2009) focused on youth creativity in developing new communication
channels to use as a form of activism to create alternative public communication
networks for critical discussion about state and society. Egyptian
youth, who mainly belong to upper-middle class and received western-style
education, did not exist before. They were aiming at drawing attention to their
role as part of the Egyptian and Arab society. Through the use and consumption
of new media (in this case desktop publishing), Egyptian youth practice
a new type of social movement and participate in the creation of new civic
publics in Cairo. In the same line, Dahlgren (2009) argues that actual participation
in public sphere is preceded and shaped by civic culture as democracy has
two dimensions: first is the sociocultural environment which shapes people’s
capacity to participate in the second, which is the public sphere and political
society where the cultural component meets the communicative spaces to
configure and facilitate democratic life. The massive, ground-swelling demonstrations
that sparked off in Cairo on 25 January resulting in the ousting of
former-President Mubarak in eighteen days ‘seem to demonstrate the validity
of civil society assumption’ (Meital 2006).
However, whether those platforms could invigorate robust offline political
participation – especially among ordinary citizens – and feed into a real
democracy still needs further investigation; especially when taking into
account the special conditions of the Egyptian society, where the total adult
illiteracy rate is about 34 per cent (UNICEF 2005–08), with Internet users
composing only 21.2 per cent of the population located mainly in urban
areas, and 4,077,520 of them are Facebook users with a penetration rate that
slightly exceeds 5 per cent (Anon 2010a).
‘National’ media scepticism and political participation
Media use is one of the factors expected to shape political engagement. A
double-track channel of communication is crucial for democratic engagement.
That is, to engage in politics, individuals need to be informed about important
issues, as well as being able to voice their opinions to large publics. In
authoritarian regimes, state-owned/operated media function as mouth pieces
of the government, and hence impose strict control over activities that are classified
as a threat to the status quo. Moreover, those media functioning in such
regimes could provide a hampered treatment of opposition activities in order to
mislead the public opinion. This code of practice is expected to magnify in time
of social conflict or national crisis (Zaki 1994) as political participation is more
likely to fall outside the traditional system, and hence receive no or unbalanced
coverage by mainstream media (Boyle and Schmierbach 2009). During the
Egyptian revolution – and even before that when the revolution sparked off in
Tunisia – the coverage provided by the so-called ‘national’ media was far from
Nermeen Sayed
278
	 2	 The 25 January
revolution was widely
linked to an event
invitation posted on
‘We Are All Khaled
Said’ Facebook page
by Wael Ghoneim, the
creator of the page,
as well as an agitating
direct-to-camera video
posted on YouTube by
a 26-year-old activist
Asmaa’ Mahfuz.
mobilizing or reinforcing participatory politics. Rather, protesters were negatively
framed in order to hinder their activity (McLeod 1995). Such negative
representations were evident in the use of marginalizing frames and the use
of smearing labels (Shoemaker 1984). Previous research suggests that biased
coverage results in negative evaluations, and hence sceptical tendency towards
mainstream media content, which is perceived as being inaccurate, incomplete
and not trustworthy (Tsfati and Capella 2003). Hala Fahmi, a recently resigned
national TV anchor stated that ‘the national media performance was part of a
plan to marginalize Egyptian people and [deceive] them into believing that the
governing regime is the best they can get’ (H. Fahmi 2011).
When political actors face obstacles to utilizing mainstream media for
mobilizing purposes, they turn to alternative resources in order to achieve their
goals. Mainstream news scepticism was found to relate positively to Internet
use for political information (Tolbert and McNeal 2003; Tsfati and Cappella
2003; Tsfati 2003). Social networking sites represent a media environment
over which users can have more control. They can practice active forms of
communication; they use, interact with, and even create content. It allows
them an opportunity to build their own network of friends and acquaintances
to discuss issues of mutual interest. As such, social networking sites can serve
as alternative platforms where young activists – most likely to be excelled
from traditional participatory spectrum – can disseminate mobilizing information
and reinforce the importance of participation through discussing political
issues with like-minded people. They can practice forms of political activism
which may or may not result in practicing politics offline where other factors
may interfere to bridge the two contexts.2
Over those platforms, activists can
counteract the controlling role of the government over mainstream media
and circumvent the negatively practiced demobilizing role. They can draw the
public’s attention to important issues of concern and even force mainstream
media to provide the least coverage of sensitive issues
Individual political efficacy and political participation
Political efficacy is one of the important political factors that were found to
have an influence on an individual’s tendency to participate in politics (Zhang
et al. 2010). In a country like Egypt, where the regime suppresses opposition
and hinder active political participation, especially when it contradicts
the elite’s interests, it is expected that individuals may accumulate a feeling
of inefficiency as they tend to believe that exerting change is beyond their
capabilities (Abramson and Aldrich 1982).
Mahmoud, a 22-year-old final year journalism student, expresses that
feeling:
I feel more enthusiastic to vote in a sports club election rather than
voting for governmental officials. When doing so, I am sure that my
voice will matter, and the result will reflect my wishes and demands. But
when it comes to politics like in parliamentary or presidential elections,
the results are already known, so why bother?
Aliaa’, a 29-year-old female journalist and activist, commented:
I have a feeling that this is the best they can do; to join an online group,
or to ‘like’ a page, but when it comes to taking to the street or making
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
279
a statement, the numbers are very moderate. This could be ascribed
to the belief that ‘nothing could be done’. Demonstrating could be a
positive reaction, but they do not know what to do next or if anything
further could be done. So when they take to the street once, they do
not do it again. And those who insist on creating events on Facebook
find that the picture is not rosy as they thought it might be and that
they cannot change the world.
However, scholars have proposed that political efficacy could be increased
via several factors. Nevertheless, many have failed to situate Internet use
amongst those factors (Kaye and Johnson 2004; Jennings and Zeitner 2003;
Johnson and Kaye 2003; Lina and Lim 2002). When it comes to online participation,
political interest and efficacy as motivations of offline political participation
were found to be moderated by the effect of Internet proficiency; that
is, even when individuals are interested in politics and feel politically efficient,
they will not tend to practice politics online if they do not acquire a
sufficient level of Internet efficacy (Gennaro and Dutton 2006). This may add
another limitation to Internet potential for mobilizing political engagement.
Fear of authority and political participation
Some may readily suggest that using social networking sites could be the
panacea for the illnesses of free expression imposed by authoritarian regimes;
as users could interact anonymously and discuss sensitive issues more freely
via those platforms. Vitak et al. (2009) argue that Facebook might have the
potential to provide a low-risk arena for users to interact with one another
about politics, which might be highly beneficial for discussing sensitive or
inappropriate issues such as politics and religion.
Interestingly, young activists have almost agreed that using nicknames as
a precaution of monitoring their activism online would harm trust relations
among online participants and lead to unintended consequences. As Ahmed
Maher, a 30-year-old activist put it:
Users will be more afraid of those who hide their names and identities,
and this could create a problem. And I generally do not think that it’s
wise to have conflicts with people and authorities if you aim at achieving
change; nonetheless, things should be discussed wisely to bond people
around a certain idea and to run a rational informed political discourse,
otherwise, I don’t think it would be fruitful. And I believe that only few
people engage in such discourse under pseudonyms.
On the other hand, bridging participation to the offline context in order to
acquire feasible change may impose more hurdles due to the expected direct
confrontation with authorities. Hence, more intensive feeling of fear may
evoke and cause withdrawals from active participation as suggested by previous
research (Willnat, Lee and Detenber 2002).
Egypt, as well as many developing countries, has witnessed waves of reforms
towards democracy, but has also, among other countries of the Middle East
region, managed to escape those changes and hold to what could be named the
‘flexible authoritarian’ regime (El-Mahdi 2009: 1011; 1029). Although freedom
of expression is de jure guaranteed, it is widely suppressed de facto, and can
only be practiced within the understanding of the ‘red lines’ especially when
Nermeen Sayed
280
dealing with the image of the country or national concerns (Amin 2002: 128).
Accordingly, Egyptian citizens are operating under an insupportable environment
which imposes several limitations on their free participation. But young
activists believe that a cohort of the Egyptians can set the example and lead the
masses to reform. As Ahmed Maher, a 30-year-old male activist, puts it:
I think it’s absolutely impossible to change the whole population, but
I know from the history of social movements all it takes is a strand
of the people who is strong and united and have a clear vision and a
certain goal that they seek to achieve and they eventually succeed. Egypt
has such strand, but they only lack the breaching of fear boundary. A
general in the army once swore to me that if people move, nothing will
stop them; neither the police nor the armed forces, and he is speaking
from within the regime about conflict scenarios. When we break the
fear barrier, only then we can achieve change.
Islam, a 21-year-old male activist, explains how the fear barrier was broken:
I was taken to the state security office many times. What made me
fearless is that I was practicing politics in the college knowing who the
agents and the informers are, and they were known for all activists at
the university. For example, when the student union elections were
fraud we hanged a courgette (a symbol of favouring) on the door of
the security office and we uploaded a picture of it on the website of
the University of Tanta. They took my father as well to the state security
to intimidate both of us, but they cannot do anything because they
consider us – the youth – of very tiny or no impact at all in of ourselves
and that we are directed and lead by weighty politicians.
Motivations and political participation
This perspective reinforces active images of audiences. With the proliferation
of the Internet, many scholars have crossed the line of ‘who’ and ‘what’
and address the question ‘why’ certain audience uses specific kind of media
(Kaye and Johnson 2004). Studying motivation rather than impact helps
getting a better idea on potentials social network sites hold for enabling
political actions (Boyd 2008a). Social networking sites have received a level
of uses and gratifications’ attention, albeit this attention has been by and
large focused on general audience – usually college students who tend to be
heavy users of social media (Liu, Cheung and Lee 2010; Shao 2009; Stoeckl,
Rohreier and Hess 2007). Few studies have applied uses and gratifications
rationale on politically interested Internet users (Kaye and Johnson 2004;
Johnson and Kaye 2003), only few studies have deployed the approach to
explain how Internet users utilize social networking sites in particular to
fulfil political needs (Leung 2009; Cozma and Ancu 2009; Park, Kee and
Valenzuela 2009; Hanson, Haridakis and Sharma 2008).
Users of user-generated media (UGM) practice different forms of activities
(i.e. consuming content, interacting with content and/or with other users and
producing content) to gratify different needs. Those gratifications, according
to Shao (2009), are enabled by the ‘easy to use’ and ‘let users control’ media
attributes (Shao 2009). An online survey of 489 bloggers and video bloggers
showed that content generators were motivated by the satisfaction they feel
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
281
out of practicing the activity in itself. On the other hand, non-producers or
‘lurkers’ were demotivated the most by factors of time consumerism and
technical restrictions – especially for video blogging (Stoeckl, Rohreier and
Hess 2007).
Leung (2009) found that UGM users were motivated the most by the
desire to be recognized. Interaction with the recipients of the content they
produce was the most stimulating media attribute of their online contentgeneration
activity. These interactions and discussions, according to Leung
(2009), feed into building and reinforcing a cyber community with common
interest. Stressing the importance of social and cultural components for political
engagement, he explains the weak relation – evident only when tested
between content creation online and external political efficacy – as that democratic
culture in Hong Kong – a British colony for 100 years until 1997 – is
still ‘immature’ and, accordingly, content generators might have had concerns
about sharing political content in public spheres (Leung 2009). Political surveillance
motives were strongly related to certain forms of political activities, such
as watching new, political ads and direct-to-camera videos (Hanson, Haridakis
and Sharma 2008). Cozma and Ancu (2009) found that voters visited MySpace
profiles of primary candidates during the 2008 presidential campaign in the
United States mainly for social interaction with supporters with whom they
share similar interests, followed by information seeking and entertainment.
While information seeking and entertainment come in the front among gratifications
of consuming online political content, they rear to the benefit of social
interaction on MySpace and SNSs more broadly (Cozma and Ancu 2009). In
the same line, habitual entertainment and information seeking were the most
dominant purposes for using YouTube during the 2008 US presidential primaries
(Hanson, Haridakis and Sharma 2008). Though those findings may contradict
with previous research on reasons behind using political media content,
they are consistent with the nature of social networking sites. Nevertheless, it
was found that users who rely on social networking sites for political information
are more likely to practice political activities than others. Facebook group
use for recreational gratifications was not found to encourage users’ participation
in political events in comparison to practicing civic activities (Park, Kee
and Valenzuela 2009; Zhang et al. 2010).
In addition to media motives, researchers have studied how social
and psychological perspectives of media users may interfere to shape the
relation  – if any – between media motives and different forms of political
consequences and outcomes. Kwon and Nam (2009) argue that psychological
characteristics assessed by both emotional (i.e. angry, concerned, afraid,
sad and defiant) and ideological factors (i.e. the need to express one’s views
on an issue, obligation and responsibility) act as catalysts for social movement
participation. Leung (2009) stated that Internet users who read, write
and comment on other people’s blogs and post videos on YouTube feel more
psychologically empowered, which may reflect on their actual participation
in their community. Intensive use of Facebook was found to feed into
stronger feelings of self-esteem and life satisfaction (Ellison, Steinfield and
Lampe 2007; Valenzuela, Park and Kee 2008). Weaker relation was reported
for social trust (Valenzuela, Park and Kee 2008). However, special political
and psychological characteristics that could be related to the context in
authoritarian regimes were overlooked in previous reserarch.
Additional to the scarcity of the studies that illuminate the area of political
uses of social media outlets, which were originally generated for social
Nermeen Sayed
282
and personal purposes, the vast majority of those studies have examined the
motives associated with online social media use within a social and political
environment that totally differs from the structural elements of the Egyptian
society under which the targeted audience of the current research operate.
These social circumstances are expected – according to uses and gratification
research – to produce different motives and gratification outcomes that result
from or associate to using particular media (Rosengren 1976).
Research Questions
This study aims to explore the reasons behind active utilization of social
networking sites by Egyptian activists in the period that preceded the 25 January
revolution in an attempt to gauge the weight of social media as platforms for
political mobilization. In doing so, I also attempt to understand the relationships
among contextual factors represented – for the purpose of this study – in political
efficacy, political interest, media scepticism, Internet political efficacy, fear of
authority and demographics by seeking answers for the following questions:
Figure 1: The sugges1ted research paradigm.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
283
RQ1: What are young Egyptian activists’ motives for using social media
(SM) for political communication?
RQ2: How do demographics, political attitudes (political efficacy), media
perceptions (‘national’ media scepticism) and psychological attributes
(fear of authority) relate to social media motives?
RQ3: How do social media antecedents (contextual factors) and motivations
predict behavioural outcomes of social media use (i.e. online political
engagement)?
RQ4: How does online political participation relate to offline political
engagement, and to what extent do political efficacy, media scepticism
and fear of authority mediate that relationship, if any?
The following diagram shows the main research variables and delineates the
suggested relationships between them:
Methodology
Data collection and sample
This study was conducted in a very special political context; data collection
started five days after the first and second rounds of the parliamentary
elections of 2010, which were marked by irregularities, violence, blockage
of media representatives and fraud. Due to the disappointing results of the
elections, feelings of discontent were dominant and the context was tense.
Ten days after data collection completion, Cairo exploded in massive protests.
Accordingly, it is expected that conducting the field study in this period could
be efficient in gauging activists’ perceptions on social media potential as
means of mobilization.
Data for this research was collected via a survey of a snowball sample of
Egyptian activists aged 18 to 35. The actual fieldwork ran between 10 December
2010 and 18 January 2011. 650 questionnaires were disseminated amongst initial
contacts who started the snowballing technique. Participation in the study was
voluntary and full anonymity of participants was guaranteed. The response rate
was 56.46 per cent with a total of 367 complete questionnaires, which went into
data entry and evaluation processes after excluding 35 questionnaires for inconsistency
and/or incompletion. A sample of participants who mentioned their
readiness to take a further step in the research by providing their contact information
in the questionnaire were contacted and invited to participate in a focus
group discussion (FGD). This yielded three complete FGDs with young activists
from different political backgrounds.
Measures
SNS motivations items were adapted from previous uses and gratifications
research (e.g. Kaye and Johnson 2004; Kim and Kim 2007). ‘Networking’
was added to the scale to allow respondents to indicate whether they use
SNS to build their own community of friends and aquaintances in order
to outreach larger audiences with their political views. Respondents indicate
the reasons of using SNS for political purposes on an index of nineteen
items split into six motivational categories; guidance (Cronbach’s = 0.76),
surveillance (Cronbach’s = 0.68), networking (Cronbach’s = 0.67), social
Nermeen Sayed
284
utility (Cronbach’s = 0.65), entertainment (Cronbach’s = 0.79) and
convenience (Cronbach’s = 0.75), where 1 meant ‘strongly disagree’ and 5
meant ‘strongly agree’.
Online political participation was measured with an aggregate scale
composed of seven items (Cronbach’s = 0.87) where 1 meant ‘never’, and
5 meant ‘very often’. Respondents were asked whether in the past year they
had (a) Joined or left a group about politics; (b) Started a social or political
topic for discussion; (c) Posted links to news stories relating to a political or
social cause; (d) Posted links to videos relating to a political or social cause;
(e) Created or invited others to participate in an event related to a political or
social cause; (f) Signed an e-mail or web petition; and (g) Forwarded a political
e-mail or link to another person.
Offline political participation scale was constructed of eight items
(Cronbach’s = 0.89) adapted from previous research (e.g. Bimber 2001;
Feezell, Conroy and Guerrero 2009) where respondents were asked to indicate
on a five-point scale (where 1 meant ‘never’ and 5 meant ‘very often’)
whether in the past year they (a) Expressed political opinion through main
stream media (written a letter to the editor of a newspaper or magazine or
called a live radio or TV show to express a political opinion); (b) Volunteered
for a campaign or other political cause; (c) Organized or participated in
organizing a political event; (d) Attended political meetings or speeches;
(e) Participated in demonstrations or protests; (f) Displayed a political button,
a sign or sticker; (g) Voted in election; and (h) Tried to influence how others
would vote.
Political efficacy was measured with an additive four items index
(Cronbach’s = 0.64) adapted from previous research (Bimber 2001).
Respondents were asked to exert to which extent they agreed or disagreed
with four items on a five-point scale, where 1 meant ‘strongly agree’
and 5 meant ‘strongly disagree’: (a) Politics is too complicated for someone
like me to follow; (b) There’s not much point in participating in political
campaigns – one person’s participation will not make any difference;
(c) People like me do not have a say in government; and (d) Politicians do
not care about what people like me think.
In the ‘national’ media scepticism section respondents were asked about
their perceptions of state-owned media by stating whether they agreed or
disagreed with five statements (Tsfati 2003) on a five-point scale, where 1
meant ‘strongly disagree’ and 5 meant ‘strongly agree’: (a) National media
provide balanced coverage of political issues; (b) News coverage delivered
by national media helps solving the problems of the society; (c) I can trust
those who run national media institutions in Egypt; (d) National media
provide accurate coverage of events; and (e) National media is trustworthy.
(Cronbach’s = 0.89).
Fear of authority was the additive measure of three items on five-point
scale (Cronbach’s = 0.68), where respondets were asked whether they
agreed or disagreed with the items: (a) I worry about being emotionally
or phisically harrased if I went on street to participate in a political activity;
(b) I feel worried about expressing my political opinion in public; and
(c) Egyptian citizen could face violations which make him/her worry
about his/her safety, where 1 meant ‘strongly agree’ and 5 meant ‘strongly
disagree’.
Demographic variables respondents were also asked questions about their
gender, age, education and monthly income of the household.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
285
Data analysis strategies
Data collected for this study went through two stages of analysis. First, analysing
the quantitative data yielded from applying the questionnaire instrument.
This analysis proceeded in several steps:
1.	Frequencies were run on demographics, motivations and contextual factors;
2.	Pearson correlation (r) was calculated to answer the second and forth
questions. Partial correlation was calculated for each contextual factor to
test its mediating impact on the correlation revealed between online and
offline participation;
3.	Linear regression was conducted to answer the third question.
Online political participation was entered as the dependent block, SNS motivations
and motivational antecedents (political efficacy, media scepticism and
fear of authority) were entered as the independent block. Second, a preliminary
analysis of qualitative data yielded from FGD and in-depth interviews
were conducted to support main themes of the research.
Results
Respondent profile
This study examined 367 responses from a self-administered survey assessing
the motivations for using social networking sites for political communication.
The gender ratio is 39.2% male and 59.4% female (n = 362). 64.9% are
university students, 24.3% are university graduates and only 8.2% hold higher
degrees (n = 357). Consistently, more than half fall into the age cohort that
range between 18 and 22, while only 4.4% range from 30 to 35 years of age
(n = 362). 38.1% report a monthly income range between 1000 < 3000 EGP,
equal proportions of the respondents (21%) reported that they earn between
3000 < 5000 EGP and 5000 < 7000 EGP, and the least proportion of the
respondents falls into the higher income category of more than 7000 EGP
(n = 346). Respondents were asked to indicate which social networking site(s)
they use to communicate with others; Facebook was by far the most visited
site (90.9%), followed by YouTube (50.6%); respondents who reported that
they use interactive comment section in electronic newspapers (15%) were
slightly more than those who used Twitter (12.3%); and blogs were the least
popular among respondents (7.3%).
SNS motivations
As Table 1 shows, guidance was the strongest motivation that drove young
activists’ political use of social networking sites: respondents indicated that
they use SNS to decide and form unbiased views on important issues or to
guide other users to valuable information (M = 16.7; SD = 3.6). Acquiring
and disseminating information to others followed, with slight difference
as respondents mentioned that their use of SNS was driven by the need
for surveillance (M = 16.2, SD = 2.4). Nevertheless, quality of information
drew participants to rely more on electronic newspapers compared to social
networking sites to acquire accurate reliable information. Past research also
found that news gathered from SNS like MySpace, Facebook and YouTube
did not add much to the users’ political knowledge or to democratic discourse
when compared with the impact of using other news sources like cable news
Nermeen Sayed
286
and traditional media (Baumgartner and Morris 2010). Amr Adel, a 35-yearold
activist expressed that view:
I think that Twitter, Facebook, and the like are ‘illusory spaces’. They
are far from reality compared to electronic newspapers, and hence less
effective. People who write on those newspapers are basically writers
and journalists; thus, they are politicized and the posted comments
and feedback on their work are almost at the same level. But on social
networking sites, the situation is chaotic and not goal-directed, which
provokes questions about its genuine political value.
Networking motives (M = 11.1; SD = 2.3) receded to the benefit of guidance,
information seeking and dissemination and convenience motives as activists
expressed their awareness of the limited capacity of social media apparatus to
breach the borders of the virtual sphere and enlarge the mobilizing effect to
the offline arena. Amr Adel said:
I think the main problem is that practising politics in Egypt is still
immature; this is why people tend to practice ‘virtual political activism’.
I mean, if there was real political participation, people would not have
spent their time chatting. Rather, they will go to the streets and play the
role properly. For example, when the Kefaya (‘enough’) movement first
started, there were 1500 registered members online, and I am a member
of that movement, but how many were actually on the streets? In fact,
you barely find a 150 or 200 protesters in any protest. Many people want
to participate, but there are also many limitations and psychological
barriers which they try to overcome by participating in the virtual political
community.
Political activists who took part in this research were driven the least by entertainment
motives (M = 6.47; SD = 2.3). Those result may contradict findings
from previous research, which stated that visiting SNS was primarily driven by
social interaction needs (Papacharissi and Mendelson 2008), but it should be
taken into account that participants in this research are political activists which
may readily suggest that their utilization of SNS will be goal-driven to achieve
SNS motivation items
I use social networking sites for
political communication…
Cronbach’s Factor Score
Mean SD
Factor 1: Guidance 0.76 16.7 3.6
Factor 2: Surveillance 0.68 16.2 2.4
Factor 3: Convenience 0.75 11.8 2.4
Factor 4: Networking 0.67 11.1 2.3
Factor 5: Social utility 0.65 7.7 1.5
Factor 6: Entertainment 0.79 6.5 2.3
Table 1: Social networking sites use motives.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
287
political aims. This result also delineates how the media environment in the
Egyptian society, where traditional media are censored by the government
and its reliability is broadly questioned, may have led participants to mistrust
‘national’ media and turn to the Internet as an alternative (Tsfati 2003; Tsfati
and Cappella 2003).
Predictors of motivations for using SNS
Contextual factors
The relationship between gratifications sought from using the SNS for
political purposes and motivational antecedents are the focus of the second
question. Respondents’ levels of poitical efficacy, media scepticism and fear of
authority were correlated with each of the use motivations. Social networking
sites motivations have twenty significant correlations out of 42 (Table 2).
‘National’ media scepticism is the strongest correlate of social networking sites
use motivations as shown in Table 2. If individuals are strongly sceptical about
state-owned media then it would be expected that their motivations to use
social networking sites would increase. This finding is consistent with previous
research as individuals tend to seek political information on the Internet
when they are not satisfied with mainstream media coverage of political issues
(Tolbert and McNeal 2003).
High levels of fear of authority strongly and significantly correlate with
using SNS for social utility (r = .171, p < 0.01), entertainment (r = .142,
p < 0.01) and, to a lesser extent, for convenience reasons (r = .135, p < 0.05).
This may suggest that individuals tend to ease their feelings of fear by ‘soft’
utilization of SNS as fear was not associated with guidance, surveillance or
networking motivations for using SNS.
Motivational
antecedents
Use motivations correlates (r)
Guidance Serveillance Networking Social
utility
Entertain-
ment
Convenience
Gender –0.130* –0.130* –0.068 0.144** 0.178** 0.036
Age 0.119* 0.096 0.043 –0.080 –0.120* –0.009
Education 0.000 0.067 0.017 –0.152** –0.163** –0.065
Monthly
income
–0.107 –0.168** –0.116* –0.129* 0.032 0.072
Political
efficacy
0.119* 0.111* 0.072 –0.005 –0.123* –0.081
Media skepti-
cism
0.210** 0.012 0.117* 0.148** 0.170** 0.078
Fear of
authority
–0.044 –0.046 0.002 0.171** 0.142** 0.135*
*p < 0.05, **p < 0.01.
Table 2: Correlations of SNS use motivations and and motivational antecedents and demographics.
Nermeen Sayed
288
In the same line, correlation analysis revealed significant associations
between political efficacy and using SNS for guidance (r = .119, p < 0.05) and
surveillance (r = .111, p < 0.05). The more SNS users feel politically efficacious
the more likely they seek and disseminate political information online.
Expectedly, significant and negative association was found between political
efficacy and entertainment motivations for using SNS (r = –.123, p < 0.05).
Demographics
Gender was found to positively correlate to social media motives. There were
significant differences in gratifications sought from SNS between males and
females as shown from T-test results. Males’ use of social media was more
driven by guidance and surveillance than females (p < 0.05). While females
used SNS for social utility and entertainment reasons more than males did
(p < 0.01), no significant differences were detected for networking and convenience
needs.
Monthly income was significantly and negatively related to surveillance
(r = –.168, p < 0.01), and to a lesser extent to networking (r = –.116, p < 0.05)
and social utility (r = –.129, p < 0.05).
Education is strongly and negatively associated with social utility (r = –.152,
p < 0.01) and entertainment motivations (r = –.163, p < 0.01) for using SNS for
Figure 2: Demographic predictors of activists’ social networking sites motivations.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
289
political communication. That is, the higher educated users are less likely to
use SNS to gratify social utility and entertainment needs.
Age correlates are the least significant among demographics. It is significantly
and positively related to guidance motivations (r = .119, p < 0.05) and
negatively to entertainment motivations (r = –.120, p < 0.05). Older respondents
are more likely to utilize SNS for guidance motivations, while younger
respondents are more driven by entertainment needs of using SNS.
Figure 2 illustrates how demographics predict activists’ use of social media
for political participation:
SNS motives and online political participation
Linear regression analysis was used to investigate the way reasons for political
use of SNS may relate to online political participation. Using SNS for guidance
was not significantly related to practicing politics on those platforms.
Recent research showed how Facebook users differentiate between practicing
different forms of political activities on the website, as they slightly accept
expressing political opinions on Facebook, but perceive the medium as being
inappropriate for attempting to persuade others to change or embrace political
beliefs or activities (Vitak et al. 2009). Low cost (money, effort and time)
was found irrelevant to practicing politics online, which may imply that young
activists are willing to devote their time and effort to achieve their goals via
practicing political activities on SNS.
Using SNS for political information was significantly related to practicing
politics online; that is, the more young activists were driven by surveillance,
the more they use SNS for political communication ( = 0.227, P < 0.01). The
more young activists were motivated by networking and making friends, the
more they used SNS for political communication ( = 0.291, P < 0.01). This
finding is typically consistent with the nature of SNS as a platform for maintaining
already established relationships and less broadly for fostering new
ones (Boyd and Ellison 2007), but it also reflects their desire of enlarging the
size of their network of acquaintances as a prerequisite for mobilizing others,
as suggested in recent research (Shen et al. 2009). The more activists were
driven by social utility motives, the less they practiced political communication
online ( = – 0.207, P < 0.01); and the more they sought entertainment,
the less they participated in politics via SNS ( = –0.125, P < 0.05).
Online and offline participation
Practicing politics on SNS was constantly related to engaging in political
activities offline (r = .601, P < 0.01); activists who practice political activities on
social networking sites tend to be more inclined to practice politics offline. This
correlation was persistent even when mediated by fear of authority (r = .576,
p < 0.01), which was expected to detach media users from bridging their activism
to the offline arena, where they may face several forms of repression and
harassment. It is argued that opinion expression in one scenario is positively
related to expression in other scenarios, and expressing opinion online will
increase possibilities to express it in reality (W. S. Fahmi 2009). The correlation
also holds strong when mediated by media scepticism (r = .611, p < 0.01) and
political efficacy (r = .561, p < 0.01).
One interesting explanation of the revealed correlation is that online
participation is not in and of itself sufficient for achieving the aspired change.
This explanation could hold strong especially when taking into consideration
Nermeen Sayed
290
that participants in the current research are activists who are already interested
in politics and are expected to be more inclined to engage in offline politics
than their fellow citizens. Mohamed El-Dakhakhny, a 23-year-old male activist
blogger, expressed the significance of offline politics to achieve change:
Social media is not sufficient in itself and people should not use
Facebook as an alternative to offline participation. It should rather be
used as means to mobilize as much people as possible to go offline. And
I think that collective actions that succeeded recently like the April 6
movement started on Facebook. The problem is to limit participation to
the Internet arena.
Discussion
This article intended to explore whether young activists tend to utilize
social networking sites such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to challenge
concentration of power and practice active role in politics under authoritarian
regimes. Much discussion of new media originates in developed countries,
and is mistakenly dealing with media as a homogenous entity called ‘today’s
global media environment’ assuming that issues ‘facing the media industry
worldwide’ were equally universal (Berger 2007: 3). Additionally, the potential
role of the Internet in the process of social and political transformation
has been also broadly discussed in western societies where ‘individualism and
representative democracy are the main cultural and institutional ingredients’
(Shen et al. 2009: 453). Therefore, it is beneficial to explore the potential social
media might have in other societies where history and present imply repressive
reactions in response to deviation from the ‘preservation of the state’ path
as defined by the governing regime.
The current study revealed that practicing political communication on SNS
strongly and positively feeds into active political participation offline. Young
Egyptian activists were found to be highly inclined to engage in politics offline,
and their online/offline activism was strongly correlated even when mediated
by political efficacy, media scepticism and, most importantly, fear of authority.
This finding lines the current research with previous work that supported
Internet potential for democratic mobilization (Boulianne 2009). The open
prison which Egyptians are currently living in – where they are denied the
most basic rights (Tisdall 2011), where emergency laws are enforced by
secret policemen and informers, where there is detention without trial, political
opponents are harassed and tortured, there are frequent executions and
mass jailing of Islamists for allegedly threatening the state, draconian curbs
on freedom of expression and the press and, most recently, the censoring or
blocking of the Internet and social media – fear of authority was expected
to have a negative impact on youth inclination to take their activism offline,
yet the results of the current research proved the opposite to be true. Ahmed
Maher, a 30-year-old male activist, shares his experience with authorities and
discusses how the fear barrier was broken:
I was arrested more than once in demonstrations and it caused no problem
to me. The problem was at the first time. I mean the barrier was
broken, and then many barriers fell apart. This creates a status especially
that I haven’t been treated violently. This breach of fear makes the
whole difference. I think we all need to breach the barriers.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
291
But before jumping to enthusiastic conclusions, and making ‘activists’
daydreams about ordinary citizens using SNSs for political actions and
speaking truth to power’ (Boyd 2008a) come true, results of the current
research should be interpreted with respect to two aspects: first, the study
was conducted on a snowball sample of young activists. This implies that
respondents could be highly interested in politics, as well as having strong
feelings of efficacy. The age cohort of the sample also raises possibilities that
participants are highly efficient in using the Internet, which was found by
previous research to be strongly related to participating in politics online
(Shen et al. 2009). Additionally, limitations of generalizing results from a
non-probability sample should be taken into account.
Second, the interval period between ‘the most fraudulent parliamentary
elections’ (Tisdall 2011) and the 25 January revolt, during which the field
research took place, is expected to be marked by vigorous political activism both
on and offline to mobilize the public behind demands of reform. Projection of
this vibrant activism is expected to reflect on the research findings.
It also worth mentioning that although the explosion of the revolt may
support the revealed correlation and even lead to exaggerations about a
‘Facebook or Twitter revolution’, interpreting the findings of the current
research with respect to the climate of 25 January revolt may shed light on
several factors that may have operated to push the demonstrations to the
revolutionary threshold, and may also help situating SNS realistically among
those factors rather than regarding social media the causative factor in sparking
off the revolt. Cutting off the Internet after only three days of taking to
the streets (Anon 2011c) may have allowed a room for trust-based networking
mechanisms through face-to-face communication, which the Internet was
blamed for undermining since it joined the mainstream more than a decade
ago (Robert Kraut 1998; Zhang et al. 2010). Protesters have also managed to
create a ‘Friday theme’ and mobilize a series of massive protests, the largest
of which were held on Fridays. Each Friday was flagged by a certain demand
to spell out people’s reaction to the regime or to announce the next step in
the revolt (i.e. Friday of Rage, Friday of Departure, Friday of Cleanliness, etc.).
Building on Ottaway and Hamzawy’s (2011) protest movement assessment in
the Arab region, it could be said that this theme helped protesters conducting
a number of connected episodes, which built on each other to provide a form
of organization for a cohesive movement.
Protesters have also managed to utilize ‘old’ media to circumvent the
censorship of the Internet and pro-revolution broadcasters (like Al Jazeera TV),
and create hybrid technological solutions which enabled what Castells called
‘flash mobilization’ (Castells et al. 2007: 200) to voice Egyptians discontent with
the regime, and help to portray a reliable picture of the revolt.
Additionally, the fear factor, although expected to work against participation,
especially in unconventional forms of engagement, has nevertheless
worked in favour of the revolt. Fear of detention and torture may have made
protesters more persistent on maintaining the momentum of the revolt. Their
faces were on independent and private satellite TV screens, and their names
and addresses were well-known to authorities; online activists were no longer
‘avatars’. Protesters felt that there is no turning back; it is either they take their
movement up to the end and topple the regime or die in Tahrir Square.
On the other side of the picture is the ‘national media’ coverage of the
revolt accompanied with the regime’s reaction to the protests and protesters.
The ‘bunch of kids’ approach led the embattled government to slip into a
Nermeen Sayed
292
series of misconducts and violations of civil rights overarched by negligence
and provocative late official announcements. This might have drawn protesters
to become more persistent and even to widen their scope of demands for
ousting the president to the limit.
This contextual realistic view of media impact was also depicted in activists’
views of social media potential for mobilization as expressed in the
focus group discussions that were conducted on the qualitative trajectory of
the current research. They discussed the difference between the numbers of
online participants and political group members and the relatively moderate
numbers of people who took to the streets in previous demonstrations
and protests. They also mentioned some of the reasons why people may tend
to participate more in the online context, where they might be motivated by
convenience. Practicing politics online was found to be less money, less effort
and less time consuming, let alone being safer and lees likely to be traced or
monitored.
Being guided by assumptions of the uses and gratifications approach,
this research serves as a first circle in the chain of the Arab uprisings
evolving studies. It helps shedding light at the individual level of social
media utilization for political participation during a critical moment of
the Egyptian history – as it captures activists’ perceptions of the potential
of social media for democratic engagement in the vibrant period that
preceded the 25 January uprisings. Accordingly, further analysis and collective
approaches are needed to shed more light on the spread and scale of
the massive demonstrations and the mechanisms that transferred them to
a revolt. As the revolt of 25 January did not happen overnight, it might also
worth revisiting and embracing ideas of class and identity-building as a
conceptual framework to scrutinize and analyze the role strikes and workers’
protests played in setting an example and building a momentum for
the revolt.
Conclusion
The current research builds on the assumption that the features of new media
and the opportunities they offer, combined with personal attributes, along with
the nature of the political and social context in the Egyptian society – where
mainstream media is dominated by the government and political engagement
is monitored and burdened with restricting conditions – might all incentivize
young adults to make use of those opportunities to get involved in their society
in order to achieve social and political change. By applying themes derived
from the uses and gratifications approach, especially those related to notions
of active audience and motivational-driven media consumption, this study
aimed at testing suggested relations between motivational, political, mediarelated
and psychological variables in order to answer questions related to
activists’ views of social media as apparatus for mobilization.
A mixed-method approach was deployed to answer the research questions.
Through analyzing the quantitative and qualitative data that yielded
from surveying 367 activists, then followed by interviewing three groups of
activists, the study revealed that activists’ political consumption of social
media was mainly drawn by guidance as their use of social media platforms
was motivated the most by helping them decide on political issues,
as well as helping others making political decisions. Practicing politics on
social media platforms was positively associated with engaging in forms of
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
293
political participation offline; a finding that may belong to the optimistic
school of thought on social media contributions to democratic engagement,
but nevertheless analyzed with respect to contextual considerations and
mechanisms that vary a lot from those operating in western societies and
well-established democracies where most previous research on the issue
was conducted.
References
Abramson, P. R. and Aldrich, J. H. (1982), ‘The Decline of Electoral Participation
in America’, The American Political Science Review, 76, pp. 502–21.
Alanani, K. (2003), Egypt: Parliamentary Elections in the Shadow of 2000,
Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Amin, H. (2002), ‘Freedom as a Value in Arab Media: Perceptions and attitudes
among journalists’, Political Communication, 19, pp. 125–35.
Anon (2010a), ‘Egypt: Internet usage and telecommunications reports’, Internet
World Stats, http://www.internetworldstats.com/af/eg.htm. Accessed
3 February 2011.
Anon (2010b), ‘Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood “faces heavy poll losses”’, BBC,
29 November, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11860568.
Accessed 17 February 2011.
Anon (2010c), ‘Egyptian parliamentary elections render opposition powerless’,
9 December, EuropeanForum, http://www.europeanforum.net/news/1020/
egyptian_parliamentary_elections_render_opposition_powerless. Accessed
7 February 2011.
Anon (2011a), ‘Al-Jazeera decries Egypt ban’, cbcnews.com, 30 January, http://
www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2011/01/30/egypt-al-jazeera.html?ref=rss.
Accessed 22 February 2011.
Anon (2011b), ‘Business’, The Wall Street Journal, 11 February, http://online.wsj.
com/article/BT-CO-20110211-713327.html. Accessed 11 February 2011.
Anon (2011c), ‘Internet and mobile phones cut off as Egypt braces itself
for fresh wave of protests’, Daily Record.co.uk, 28 January, http://www.
dailyrecord.co.uk/news/uk-world-news/2011/01/28/internet-and-mobile-
phones-cut-off-as-egypt-braces-itself-for-fresh-wave-of-protests-86908-
22881559/. Accessed 22 February 2011.
Arrott, E. (2010), ‘Violence, voting irregularities mar Egyptian elections’, VOA
News.com, 28 November, file:///E:/parliamentary%20elections/violence..
voting%20irregularities%20mar%20Egyptian%20elections.html. Accessed
January 2011.
Arthur, Charles (2011), ‘Google and Twitter launch service enabling Egyptians
to Tweet by phone’, guardian.co.uk, 1 February, http://www.guardian.co.uk/
technology/2011/feb/01/google-twitter-egypt. Accessed 20 February 2011.
Arvizu, S. (2009), ‘Creating Alternative Visions of Arab Society: Emerging
youth publics in Cairo’, Media, Culture & Society, 31: 3, pp. 385–403.
Ayubi, N. N. (1989), ‘Government and the State in Egypt Today’, in C. Tripp
and R. Owen, Egypt Under Mubarak, London: Routledge, pp. 1–21.
Baumgartner, J. and Morris, J. (2010), ‘MySpaceTube Politics: Social networking
websites and political engagement of young adults’, Social Science
Computer Review, pp. 24–44.
Berger, G. (2007), ‘New media and press freedom in the developing world’,
New Media: The Press Freedom Dimentions. Challenges and Opportunities of
New Media for Press Freedom, Paris: The World Press Freedom Committee.
Nermeen Sayed
294
Bimber, B. (2000), ‘Measuring the gender gap on the Internet’, Social Science
Quarterly, 81: 3.
—— (2001), ‘Information and Political Engagement in America: The search for
effects of information technology at the individual level’, Political Research
Quarterly, 54: 1, pp. 53–67.
Boulianne, S. (2009), ‘Does Internet Use Affect Engagement? A meta-analysis
of research’, Political Communication, 26, pp. 193–211.
Boyd, D. (2004), The New Blogocracy, http://dir.salon.com/story/tech/
feature/2004/07/28/demoblog/. Accessed 20 February 2010.
—— (2008a), ‘Can Social Network Sites Enable Political Action?’, in M. S.
Allison Fine, Rebooting America, USA: Creative Commons, pp. 112–16.
—— (2008b), ‘Taken Out of Context: American teen sociality in networked
publics’, Dissertation, Providence, RI: Brown University
—— and Ellison, N. B. (2007), ‘Social Network Sites: Definition, history, and
scholarship’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13, pp. 210–30.
Boyle, M. P. and Schmierbach, M. (2009), ‘Media Use and Protest: The role of
mainstream and alternative media use in predicting traditional and protest
participation’, Communication Quarterly, 57: 1, pp. 1–17.
Brandtzaeg, P. B. and Heim, J. (2009), ‘Why People Use Social Networking
Sites’, Online Communities, pp. 143–52.
Brownlee, J. (2002), ‘Democratization in the Arab World? The Decline of
Pluralism in Mubarak’s Egypt’, Journal of Democracy, 13: 4, pp. 6-14.
Castells, M., Fernández-Ardèvol, M., Linchuan, J. Q. and Sey, A. (2007), ‘The
Mobile Civil Society: Social movements, political power, and communication
networks’, in M. Castells, M. Fernández-Ardèvol, J. Q. Linchuan and
A. Sey, Mobile Communication and Society: A Global Perspective, Cambrigde/
London: MIT Press, pp. 200–29.
Chick, K. (2010),‘Egypt election routs popular Muslim Brotherhood from parliament’,
The Christian Science Monitor, 1 December, http://www.csmonitor.
com/World/Middle-East/2010/1201/Egypt-election-routs-popular-MuslimBrotherhood-from-parliament.
Accessed 17 February 2011.
Cooper, M. N. (1982), ‘The Demilitarization of the Egyptian Cabinet’,
International Journal of Middle East Studies, 14: 2, pp. 203–25.
Cozma, R. and Ancu, M. (2009), ‘MySpace Politics: Uses and gratifications of
befriending candidates’, Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, 53: 4,
pp. 567–83.
Dan Li, B. (2005), Why Do You Blog: A Uses-and-Gratifications Inquiry into
Bloggers’ Motivations, Thesis, Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University.
Diab, O. (2010), ‘Egyptian government fears a Facebook revolution’, guardian.
co.uk, 21 Ocotber, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/oct/21/
egypt-facebook-revolution. Accessed 22 October 2010.
Dunne, M., Hamzawy, A. and Brown, N. J. (2007), Egypt – Don’t Give Up
on Democracy Promotion, Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace.
Ellison, N. B., Steinfield, C. and Lampe, C. (2007), ‘The Benifits of Facebook
“Friends”: Social capital and college students’ use of online social network
sites’, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 12, pp. 1143–68.
El-Mahdi, R. (2009), ‘Enough: Egypt’s quest for democracy’, Comparative
Political Studies, 42, pp. 1011–39.
Fahmi, H. (2011), Personal interview, 7 February.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
295
Fahmi, W. S. (2009), ‘Bloggers Street Movement and the Right to the City:
(Re)Claiming Cairo’s real and virtual spaces of freedom’, Environment and
Urbanization, 21: 1, pp. 89–107.
Feezell, J. T., Conroy, M. and Guerrero, M. (2009), ‘Facebook is... Fostering
Political Engagement: A study of online social networking groups and
offline participation’, in American Political Science Association 2009 Annual
Meeting, Toronto, Canada.
Gennaro, C. D. and Dutton, W. (2006), ‘The Internet and the Public: Online
and offline political participation in the United Kingdom’, Parliamentary
Affairs, 59: 2, pp. 299–313.
Gibson, R. K., Lusoli, W. and Ward, S. (2005), ‘Online Participation in the UK:
Testing a “contextualized” model of Internet effects’, BJPIR, 7, pp. 561–83.
Hamzawy, A. and Brown, N. J. (2005), Can Egypt’s Troubled Elections Produce
a More Democratic Future?, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
Washington, DC.
Hanson, G., Haridakis, P. and Sharma, R. (2008), ‘Differing Uses of YouTube
During the 2008 U.S. Presidential Primary Election’, in The Annual Meeting
of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication,
Denver, CO, pp. 1–19.
Hwang, H., Schmierbach, M., Paek, H.-J., Zuniga, H. G. and Shah, D. (2006),
‘Media Dissociation, Internet Use, and Antiwar Political Participation:
A case study of political dissent and action against the war in Iraq’, Mass
Communication & Society, 9: 4, pp. 461–83.
Jabarti, S. (2011), ‘Will Egypt ever believe its media again?’, WordheenNews.
Com, 12 February, http://wardheernews.com/News_2011/Feb/13_Will_
Egypt_ever_believe_its_media_again.html. Accessed 19 February 2011.
Jennings, M. K. and Zeitner, V. (2003), ‘Internet Use and Civic Engagement:
A longitudinal analysis’, The Public Opinion Quarterly, 67: 3, pp. 311–34.
Johnson, T. J. and Kaye, B. K. (2003), ‘A Boost or Bust for Democracy? How
the web influenced political attitudes and behaviors in the 1996 and 2000
Presidential Elections’, Harvard International Journal of Press/Politics, 8,
pp. 9–34.
Jordan, T. (1999), ‘Cyberpower: The Culture and Politics of Cyberspace’,
Internet Society, http://www.isoc.org/inet99/proceedings/3i/index.htm.
Accessed 12 March 2011.
Kaye, B. K. and Johnson, T. J. (2004), ‘A Web for All Reasons: Uses and gratifications
for Internet components for political information’, Telematics and
Informatics, 21, pp. 197–223.
Kim, K. S. and Kim, Y.-C. (2007), ‘New and old media uses and political engagement
among Korean adolescents’, Asian Journal of Communication, 17: 4,
pp. 342–61.
Krueger, B. S. (2002), ‘Assessing the potential of Internet political participation
in the United States’, American Politics Research, 30, pp. 476–98.
Kwon, K. and Nam, Y. (2009), ‘Instrumental Utilization of ICTs in Mobilization
Processes of Political Collective Actions: In the context of grassroots protest
of Korea 2008’, in The Annual Meeting of the International Communicastion
Association, Chicago, IL, pp. 1–31.
Leung, L. (2009), ‘User-generated Content on the Internet: An examination
of gratification, civic engagement and psychological empowerment’, New
Media & Society, pp. 1327–47.
Nermeen Sayed
296
Lina, Y. and Lim, S. (2002), ‘Relationships of Media Use to Political Cynicism
and Efficacy: A preliminary study of young South Korean voters’, Asian
Journal of Communication, 12: 1, pp. 25–39.
Liu, I. L., Cheung, C. M. and Lee, M. K. (2010), ‘Understanding Twitter
Usage: What drives people to continue to tweet’, Pacific Asia conference on
Information Systems (PACIS), pp. 928–39.
Mansour, Ahmed (2009), ‘A transnational government must be in place to establish
a comprehensive reform’, AhlAlQuran, http://www.ahl-alquran.com/
English/show_article.php?main_id=131. Accessed 20 November 2009.
McLeod, D. (1995), ‘Communication Deviance: The effects of television news
coverage of social protest’, Journal of Communication, pp. 3–23.
Meital, Y. (2006), ‘Struggle over Political Order in Egypt: The 2005 elections’,
The Middle East Journal, 60: 2, pp. 257–79.
Mosca, L. (2008), ‘A Double-faced Medium? The Challenges and Opportunities
of the Internet for Social Movements’, in T. H. JarmoRinne, Net Working/
Networking: Citizen Initiated Internet Politics, Tampere: Tampere University
Press, pp. 41–73.
Neuwrith, K. and Frederick, E. (2004), ‘Peer and Social Influence on Opinion
Expression: Combining the theories of planned behaviour and the spiral of
silence’, Communication Research, 31: 6, pp. 669–703.
Ottaway, M. and Hamzawy, A. (2011), Protest Movements and Political,
Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Otterman, S. (2005), ‘Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt’s parliamentary elections’,
Council on Foreign Relations, 1 December, http://www.cfr.org/egypt/
muslim-brotherhood-egypts-parliamentary-elections/p9319. Accessed
17 February 2011.
Papacharissi, Z. and Mendelson, A. (2008), ‘Friends, Networks, and Zombies:
The social utility of Facebook’, in The Annual Meeting of the Association of
Internet Researchers, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Park, N., Kee, K. F. and Valenzuela, S. (2009), ‘Being Immersed in Social
Networking Environment: Facebook groups, uses and gratifications, and
social outcomes’, Cyber Psychology and Behaviour, 12: 6, pp. 729–33.
Pintak, L. (2008), ‘The role of the media as watch-dogs, agenda-setters and
gate-keepers in Arab states’, in Harvard-World Bank Workshop, 29–31 May,
Harvard Kennedy School: New York, pp. 1–16.
Putnam, R. D. (2000), Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American
Community, New York: Touchstone.
Robert Kraut, M. P. (1998), ‘Internet Paradox: A social technology that reduces
social involvement and psychological well-being?’, American Psychologist,
53, pp. 1017–31.
Rosengren, K. (1976), ‘Uses and Gratifications: A paradigm outline’, in
G. Blumler and E. Katz, The Uses of Mass Communications, Harmondsworth:
Penguin, pp. 135–65.
Royal, C. (n.d.), ‘What Do People Do Online? Indications for the Future of
Media’, in The UT International Symposium in Online Journalism, pp. 1–22.
Shah, D., Schmierbach, M., Hawkins, J., Espino, R. and Donavan, J. (2002),
‘Nonrecursive Models of Internet Use and Community Engagement:
Questioning whether time online erodes social capital’, Journalism & Mass
Communication Quarterly, 79: 4.
Shamir, J. (1995), ‘Information Cues and Indicators of the Climate of Opinion:
The spiral of silence theory in the intifada’, Communication Research, 22: 1,
pp. 24–53.
Towards the Egyptian Revolution
297
Shao, G. (2009), ‘Understanding the Appeal of User-generated Media: A uses
and gratification perspective’, Internet Research, 19: 1, pp. 7–25.
Shen, F., Wang, N., Guo, Z. and Guo, L. (2009), ‘Online Network Size,
Efficacy, and Opinion Expression: Assessing the impacts of Internet use in
China’, Public Opinion Research, 21: 4, pp. 451–76.
Shoemaker, P. (1984), ‘Media treatment of deviant political groups’, Journalism
Quarterly, 61, pp. 66–75.
Smitten, S. I. (2008), ‘Political Potential and Capabilities of Online
Communities’, German Policy Studies, 4: 4, pp. 33–62.
Stoeckl, R., Rohreier, P. and Hess, T. (2007), ‘Motivations to Produce Usergenerated
Content: Differences between webloggers and videobloggers’,
in 20th Bled eConference eMergence: Merging and Engineering Technologies,
Processes, and Institutions, Bled, Slovenia, pp. 398–412.
Tisdall, S. (2011), ‘Hosni Mubarak: Egyptian “pharaoh” dethroned amid
gunfire and blood’, The Guardian, 11 February, http://www.guardian.
co.uk/world/2011/feb/11/hosni-mubarak-resigns-analysis. Accessed
27 February 2011.
Tolbert, C. J. and McNeal, R. S. (2003), ‘Unraveling the effects of the Internet
on political participation?’, Political Research Quarterly, 56: 2, pp. 175–85.
Tsfati, Y. (2003), ‘Media skepticism and climate of opinion perception’,
International Journal of Public Opinion Research, 15: 1, pp. 65–82.
—— and Cappella, J. N. (2003), ‘Do people watch what they do not trust?’,
Communication Research, 30, pp. 1–26.
UNICEF (2005–08), Egypt, http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/egypt_statistics.
html. Accessed 28 February 2011.
Valenzuela, S., Park, N. and Kee, K. F. (2008), ‘Lessons from Facebook: The
effects of social network site on college students’ social capital’, in The 9th
International Symposium on Online Journalism, Austin, TX, pp. 1–39.
Vitak, J., Smock, A., Zube, P., Carr, C., Ellison, N. and Lampe, C. (2009),
‘“Poking” People to Participate: Facebook and political participation in the
2008 election’, in The International Communication Association. Chicago, IL.
Willnat, L., Lee, W. and Detenber, B. H. (2002), ‘The Spiral of Silence Thoery
in Singapore’, World Association for Public Opinion Research, pp. 391–412.
Zaki, M. (1994), Civil Society & Democratization in Egypt, Lebanon: Dar Al
Kutub.
Zhang, W., Johnson, T. J., Seltzer, T. and Bichard, S. L. (2010), ‘The Revolution
Will be Networked: The influence of social networking sites on political
attitudes and behavior’, Social Science Computer Review, 28: 1, pp. 75–92.
Suggested citation
Sayed, N. (2011), ‘Towards the Egyptian Revolution: Activists’ perceptions of
social media for mobilization’, Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research
4: 2+3, pp. 273–298, doi: 10.1386/jammr.4.2-3.273_1
Contributor details
Nermeen Sayed is a researcher of communication studies at the University
of York, UK. She is also a media consultant on a public policy research
partnership between The Open University and the BBC World Service
researching ‘The Art of Intercultural Dialogue: Evaluating the Global
Conversation at the BBC World Service’. Before starting her programme in
Nermeen Sayed
298
York, Nermeen was an assistant lecturer of media production at Ain-shams
University, Egypt. She also worked as a part-time lecturer of public relations
and mass media writing at the Modern Sciences and Arts University (MSA),
which works in collaboration with the Middlesex and Greenwich Universities
in the UK. She has recently published a book article on the Arab Spring and
the role of social media. Nermeen’s research interests are mainly focused on
political communication and the potential role of new media technologies in
democratization and mobilization with a special focus on youth.
Contact: Wentworth College, University of York, Heslington, York, YO10
5DD, UK.
E-mail: nsh503@york.ac.uk
Copyright of Journal of Arab & Muslim Media Research is the property of Intellect Ltd. and its content may not
be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written
permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.